More Guns Less Crime
Page 23
Concealed-handgun laws also have an important advantage over uniformed police, for would-be attackers can aim their initial assault at a single officer, or alternatively wait until he leaves the area. With concealed carrying by ordinary citizens, it is not known who is armed until the criminal actually attacks. Concealed-handgun laws might therefore also require fewer people carrying weapons. Some school systems (such as Baltimore) have recognized this problem and made nonuniformed police officers "part of the faculty at each school." 39
Despite all the debate about criminals behaving irrationally, reducing their ability to accomplish their warped goals reduces their willingness to attack. Yet even if mass murder is the only goal, the possibility of a law-abiding citizen carrying a concealed handgun in a restaurant or on a train is apparently enough to convince many would-be killers that they will not be successful. Unfortunately, without concealed carry, ordinary citizens are sitting ducks, waiting to be victimized.
Other Gun-Control Laws
"Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters," Gravano said. "I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins." 40
Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, the Mafia turncoat, when asked about gun control
The last year has seen a big push for new gun-control laws. Unfortunately, the discussion focuses on only the possible benefits and ignores any costs. Waiting periods may allow for a "cooling-off period," but they may also make it difficult for people to obtain a gun quickly for self-defense. Gun locks may prevent accidental gun deaths involving young children, but they may also make it difficult for people to use a gun quickly for self-defense. 41 The exaggerated stories about accidental gun deaths, particularly those involving young children, might scare people into not owning guns for protection, even though guns offer by far the most effective means of defending oneself and one's family.
Some laws, such as the Brady law, may prevent some criminals from buying guns through legal channels, such as regular gun stores. Never-
theless, such laws are not going to prevent criminals from obtaining guns through other means, including theft. Just as the government has had difficulty in stopping gangs from getting drugs to sell, it is dubious that the government would succeed in stopping criminals from acquiring guns to defend their drug turf.
Similar points can be made about one-gun-a-month rules. The cost that they impose upon the law abiding may be small. Yet there is still a security issue here: someone being threatened might immediately want to store guns at several places so that one is always easily within reach. The one-gun-a-month rule makes that impossible. Besides this issue, the rule is primarily an inconvenience for those who buy guns as gifts or who want to take their families hunting.
The enactment dates for the safe-storage laws and one-gun-a-month rules are shown in table 9.5/ 12 For the implementation dates of safe-storage laws, I relied primarily on an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, though this contained only laws passed up
Table 9.5 Enactment dates of other gun control laws
State Date law went into effect*
Safe-storage laws: a
Florida 10/1/89
Iowa 4/5/90
Connecticut 10/1/90
Nevada 10/1/91
California 1/1/92
New Jersey 1/17/92
Wisconsin 4/16/92
Hawaii 6/29/92
Virginia 7/1/92
Maryland 10/1/92
Minnesota 8/1/93
North Carolina 12/1/93
Delaware 10/1/94
Rhode Island 9/15/95
Texas 1/1/96 One-gun-a-month laws: b
South Carolina 1976
Virginia 7/93
Maryland 10/1/96
"Source for the dates of enactment of safe-storage laws through the end of 1993 is Peter Cummings,
David C. Grossman, Frederick P. Rivara, and Thomas D. Koepsell, "State Gun Safe Storage Laws
and Child Mortality Due to Firearms," Journal ofthe American Medical Association, 278 (October 1, 1997):
1084-86. The other dates were obtained from the Handgun Control Web site at http://www.hand-
guncontrol.org/caplaws.htm.
b Data were obtained through a Nexis/Lexis search. Lynn Waltz, "Virginia Law Cuts Gun Pipeline to
Capital's Criminals, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, September 8, 1996, p. A7.
EPILOGUE/ 199
through the end of 1993. 43 Handgun Control's Web site provided information on the three states that passed laws after this date. The laws share certain common features, such as making it a crime to store firearms in a way that a reasonable person would know allows a child to gain use of a weapon. The primary differences involve exactly what penalties are imposed and the age at which a child's access becomes allowed. While Connecticut, California, and Florida classify such violations as felonies, other states classify them as misdemeanors. The age at which children's access is permitted also varies across states, ranging from twelve in Virginia to eighteen in North Carolina and Delaware. Most state rules protect owners from liability if firearms are stored in a locked box, secured with a trigger lock, or obtained through unlawful entry.
The state-level estimates are shown in table 9.6. Only the right-to-carry laws are associated with significant reductions in crime rates. Among the violent-crime categories, the Brady law is only significantly related to rape, which increased by 3.6 percent after the law passed. (While the coefficients indicate that the law resulted in more murders and robberies but fewer aggravated assaults and as a consequence fewer overall violent crimes, none of those effects are even close to being statistically significant.) Only the impact of the Brady law on rape rates is consistent with the earlier results that we found for the data up through 1994.
Safe-storage rules also seem to cause some real problems. Passage of these laws is significantly related to almost 9 percent more rapes and robberies and 5.6 percent more burglaries. In terms of total crime in 1996, the presence of the law in just these fifteen states was associated with 3,600 more rapes, 22,500 more robberies, and 64,000 more burglaries. These increases might reflect the increased difficulty victims have in reaching a gun to protect themselves. However, a contributing factor might be the horror stories that often accompany the passage of these laws, reducing people's desire to own a gun in the first place. The increase in burglaries is particularly notable. Burglars appeared to be less afraid of entering homes after these laws were passed. Additional state data would be required to answer the question of whether "hot burglaries"—burglaries occurring while the residents are in the dwelling—increased and whether burglars spent less time casing dwellings after these laws were passed. Evidence of these other changes would help confirm that these laws have emboldened criminals.
On the other side of this question is the number of accidental gun deaths that will be prevented. The General Accounting Office reported in 1991 that mechanical safety locks are unreliable in preventing children over six years of age from using a gun, 44 but there is still the question of
Table 9.6 Evaluating other gun-control laws using state-level data
Percent change in various crime rates for changes in explanatory variables
Violent Aggravated Property
crime Murder Rape Robbery assault crime
Burglary Larceny
Auto theft
Change in the crime rate from the difference in the annual change in crime rates in the years before and after the adoption of the right-to-carry law (annual rate of change after the law — annual rate of change before the law)
Change in the average crime rate after the adoption of Brady law
Change in the average crime rate after the adoption of safe-storage rules
-2.0%*
-2.4%
0.04%
-3.2%*
3.6%
1.3%
3.6% a 0.02% -4.2%
8.9% a 8.9% a -4.4%
-1.3%* -2.9%* -0.8%*** 0.06%
-0.6% 0.7% -0.6%
2.5%
EPILOGUE / 201
how many of these children's lives might have been saved, and even if locks are unreliable for older children, some deaths may be prevented. Even if one believes that the high-end estimated benefits are correct, that as many as 31 of the 136 children under age fifteen who had died from accidental gunshots in 1996 would have been saved by nationwide safe-storage laws, table 9.6 implies some caution. 45 The effect for murders was not statistically significant, but it still provides the best estimate that we have and the size of the effect is still instructive. It indicates that in just these fifteen states, 109 lives would be lost from this law. If the entire country had these safe-storage laws, the total lost lives would have risen to 255.
Yet other research that I have done with John Whitley indicates that this is the most optimistic possible outcome from safe-storage laws. We find no support for the theory that safe-storage laws reduce either juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicides. Instead, these storage requirements appear to impair people's ability to use guns defensively. Because accidental shooters also tend to be the ones most likely to violate the new law, safe-storage laws increase violent and property crimes against low-risk citizens with no observable offsetting benefit in terms of reduced accidents or suicides. Just as important, we found that examining the simple before-and-after average effects of the law underestimates the increases in crime that result from safe-storage laws. When the before-and-after trends are accounted for, the group of fifteen states that adopted these laws faced an annual average increase of over 300 more murders, 3,860 more rapes, 24,650 more robberies, and over 25,000 more aggravated assaults during the first five full years after the passage of the safe-storage laws. Using the National Institute of Justice estimates of victim costs from crime indicates that the average annual costs borne by victims averaged over $2.6 billion.
The one-gun-a-month rule seems to have negative consequences, too. But only three states passed these laws during the twenty years studied, so there is always the issue of whether enough data exist and whether other factors might have played a role. Nevertheless, the passage of these laws was associated with more murders, more robberies, and more aggravated assaults, and the effects appear to be quite large.
One possible suspicion, however, is that the large effect of one-gun-a-month rules merely reflects some regional crime increases, increases that just happen to coincide with the adoption of these laws. To counter this potential problem, I again allowed year-to-year average differences to vary by region, as I had done for the county- and city-level data. The results for right-to-carry laws were essentially unchanged, and the pattern for other gun-control laws remained very similar, though some of
the statistical significance declined. The Brady law was still associated with a statistically significant increase in rapes. Using the simple before-and-after averages, safe-storage laws were still associated with statistically significant increases in rape, robbery, and burglary. Indeed, not only did the coefficients remain significant at the 1 percent level, but the results actually implied slightly larger increases in these crime categories, with the effect from state storage laws on rape now increasing to 9 percent, on robbery to 9.9 percent, and on burglary to 6.8 percent.
The Political and Academic Debate Continued
Attacking the Messenger
David Yassky [member of the board of directors of Handgun Control,
Inc.]: The people who fund your studies are gun manufacturers. Lott: That is a lie.
Yassky: That is not a lie. That is not a lie. Lott: That is a lie. Yassky: It is paid for by gun manufacturers who manufacture firearms.
From Debates/Debates, a nationally syndicated program on public television that was broadcast during the week of April 22, 1999
Michael Beard [president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence]: Yes, and you're unbiased. You work for, what, the Olin Foundation, which manufactures firearms ...
Lott: No I don't. I work for the University of Chicago.
Beard: Who pays your salary?
Lott: The University of Chicago pays my salary.
Beard: Through the Olin Foundation.
Lott: No, that's not true.
From CNN Today, June 18, 1999; 1:29 P.M. Eastern Time
Gun-control advocates all too frequently use these types of arguments in debates. Often callers on radio shows make similar claims. Even if the claim merely diverts the discussion away from whether guns save more lives than they cost, my guess is that the gun-control organizations view the personal attack as a success. 46 Unfortunately, no matter how many times I deny the charge or explain that no, I did not apply for money from the Olin Foundation; no, I was paid by the University of Chicago; no, the Olin Foundation and the Olin Corporation are separate entities; and no, it was the faculty at the University of Chicago who decided on my appointment and they asked no questions about my future research topics, many people still tune out after these charges are raised.
During 1999, numerous newspaper columns also made similar claims, for instance: "John R. Lott Jr., the latest darling of gun advocates everywhere. He's the Olin Fellow of Law and Economics at the University of Chicago School of Law. (That's 'Olin' as in Olin-Winchester, one of the world's leading manufacturers of ammunition)." 47 Or "They fail to mention that Lott is a John M. Olin fellow. This Olin Foundation is funded through the Olin Corp., the parent company of Winchester Ammunition. Winchester makes more money as the sale of handguns goes up." 48 Letter writers to newspapers have also chimed in: "It was particularly helpful that he exposed Professor John R. Lott Jr. as an intellectually dishonest toady of the bullet manufacturing industry." 49 Even after being given facts to the contrary, some state legislators have continued making claims like "The Lott study's been thrown out. . . . It's a joke... . Professor Lott is funded by the Olin Corporation which is funded by Winchester." 50 And, of course, Internet news-group discussions are filled with such assertions. 51 Others bring up the topic only to point out that while others believe it to be important, they do not personally believe that it is relevant. 52
Gun-control groups have repeatedly attacked me rather than my findings and distorted the research I have done in other areas. State legislators in Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, and Maryland have begun calling me up to ask whether it is true that I don't think that police departments should hire black or female police officers. Handgun Control and the Violence Policy Center spread claims such as "Lott has argued that the hiring of more women and minorities in law enforcement has actually increased crime rates." 53 They have made this claim on their Web sites, in debates, and on radio programs. 54 In fact, I had stated that this would be the wrong conclusion to reach. The paper argued: "But it would be a serious mistake not to realize that this simple relationship is masking that the new rules reduce the quality of new hires from other groups." 55 The affirmative action rules which changed the testing standards lowered the quality of new police hires across the board, and that was showing itself in the simple relationship between minority hires and crime. 56
On the upside, many have come to my defense. One academic review of my book noted, "The personal (and, to those who know him, completely unfounded) attacks on John Lott's integrity were made with such ferocity and in so many media outlets nationwide that one can only conclude that Lott was, with apologies to our gracious First Lady, the target of a vast left-wing conspiracy to discredit his politically incorrect findings." 57 Another academic review wrote: "the ease with which gun-control advocates could get misleading and even false claims published by the press raises important public choice questions. Many of these claims were
highly personal and vicious, including outright lies about alleged funding of Lott's research by the firearms industry ... , about the outlet for his then forthcoming work ... , about Lott'
s fringe ideas ... , and about his lack of qualifications Most academics probably would have withdrawn back into the sheltered halls of their universities rather than expose themselves to the vicious public attacks that John Lott faced." 58 Other academics have written that "gun control groups attempted to discredit his work by smearing him with accusations that they had to know were patently false" 59 and about the "vicious campaign of lies and distortions." 60 Publications for police officer associations have also been very supportive. 61
Once in a while, I have come to feel that there is a well-organized campaign to impugn my findings, especially on days when I have done radio talk shows for stations based in different parts of the country and callers state word for word the exact same charge that I have been paid to do my research by gun makers. Originally, I had thought that these personal attacks would fade away after a year or so, but they have now continued for three years, so unfortunately they will probably continue. The most disconcerting aspect of this, especially for my family, has been the numerous physical threats, including an instance of a note on our apartment door. 62
Yet the gun-control organizations still realized that they had to do more to counter my work. In December 1996, Handgun Control had organized a debate that was broadcast on C-SPAN between myself and three critics: Dan Black, Dan Nagin, and Jens Ludwig. However, none of the researchers that they invited were able to claim that concealed-handgun laws increased crime. I can only imagine that this put Handgun Control in a bind. It is hard to oppose legislation or a referendum by arguing that concealed-handgun laws do no harm. Not being able to find support from the researchers that they work closely with, Handgun Control finally came out with its own numbers in a press release on January 18, 1999, arguing that between 1992 and 1997 violent-crime rates were falling more quickly in the states that most restricted concealed handguns than in the states with more liberal rules.
Their claim was widely and uncritically reported in publications from Newsweek to USA Today, as well as during the spring 1999 campaign to pass a concealed-handgun law in Missouri. 63 Press coverage and Handgun Control itself usually referred to this contention as coming from the FBI. 64